This does make me remember something that a guy was writing about Gundam's later years. Something like, "When transformable mobile suits and mobile armors were found to be dead ends." I wish I could find the quote. When I read it I was thinking "What?! Those 'dead end' mobile suits sure raised hell on the battlefield!"

Were transformable mobile suits really found to be less desirable in the UC universe?

I dunno... they seem to come in and out of style. There were no transformables in the F91 era, but there were a few on both side in Victory Gundam. Heck, there's even one in the G-Saviour video game, so I guess they don't go away even after UC 0200. And plus, there are a few transformables in Gundam X, which likes to imply it happens after all the UC stories... so... I guess the Grypps Conflict was the "golden age" of Transformables, but they never became viable mass-production models, but experimental, elite, and advanced MWs would continue to have transforming capability.

At the time of F91 there was not much of a requirement for a mobile suit to reenter Earths Atmosphere. There was a "Diver Gundam" parts kit, for a one shot landing on a planet, but it was probably more suited to landing on Mars than on Earth.

By the time of V Gundam the V2 Gundam could go where it wanted through the combination of the Minovsky Lift system and the Minovsky Drive "wings of light". It could fly directly to the Moon from the surface of the Earth in 30 hours and come back. There wasn't much need for it to transform, which would only make it faster in horizontal flight in atmosphere.

The NuGundams Fin Funnels in Chars Counter Attack were a kind of shield bit (though you needed at least 3 of them to work). V2 Assault Gundam had a shield that carried 3 bits to spread out and generate a similar beam sheild.

A V2 Gundam with Fin Funnels would be interesting. A V2 could also possibly use a spare Core Fighter or two as bits if the Core Fighters could be wired for it.

Ssssooooo, I've had some time on my hands, and I've found myself revisiting this subject. Here are some more ideas on future Mobile Suit technologies:

Energized Mono-Gundarium
This, really, is functionally the same as Phase Shift Armor. I actually came up with the idea of EMG back around the time V Gundam was on the air, and it was inspired by the tech of SPT Layzner -- SPT armor uses an electrical charge in order to be active and be so super-effective. I just borrowed the idea for Gundam, adding in that the Gundarium molecules would be, during the armor's casting, spun into mono-molecular threads which could be weaved, spun, and layered into super-dense, super-conductive elements. Well, it was new and futuristic at the time...

Beam Field
Combining an I-Field and a Beam Shield (or Beam Barrier), this would be a fully-functional "force field". It would be a spherical I-Field around the MS, and the I-Field would conduct Mega-Particles to any impact point, forming a Beam Shield which could defeat Beam and projectile weapons alike. Once again, of course, Gundam Seed has featured somewhat similar technology.

I-Field Blade
This is something I'm surprised hasn't been done more... A highly-focused, "sharp", potentially even rapidly-vibrating I-Field shaped like a blade, used for cutting through protective I-Fields, Beam Shields, Beam Barriers, and of course armor. Then again, the SUMO from Turn-A did have an "IF Banker" attack which used a focused I-Field to reinforce a piledriver type attack. Heh, not only could you have an IF Blade, you could have a HFIF Blade (High-Frequency I-Field), or even a VSIF Blade (Variable Speed I-Field).

Beam Missiles
I'm not sure how these would work (though I have ideas), but the basic idea is that I'd love to see Mobile Suits fire those curving, angling beams like we see a lot of ships in Gall Force firing. My best idea for how this might work would involve a Positron-based targeting beam which the actual Mega-Particle Beams would follow to home in on the target. Positrons being anti-electrons that travel backwards through time, I think this might be sorta rationalizable.

Beam Suit
Okay, this is a wacky spin on Bits and such. Instead of a Psycommu-controlled Bit Mobile Suit, how about a Bit which generates a Mobile Suit-shaped Beam weapon? Imagine an MS firing off a swarm of Bits which stop, hover, and "grow" duplicates of the mother MS... but though the duplicates are shaped like the mother MS, they're made out of pure Beam energy, baby! Of course, if some kind of hologram system is also included, the Beam Suit could even look like a real MS! Just like a ninja, you could make "dopplegangs" of yourself, but if anyone touches your doppleganger, it's like they just touched a lightsaber. Ouch. This system could also be called, oh, maybe Phantom Bits, or even "Ghost Lights".

New GUNDAM acronyms
Gundam Seed really went berserk on the acronyms for Gundam, but I have a few more:
Generationally-Upgrading Newtype-Dedicated Advanced Mobilesuit
Globally Unique Nexus of Data, Armament and Mechanics
Gressorial, Universally-Networked, Defense/Attack Machine
Gun-Defeating Armor Mobilesuit

New Gundarium derivatives
We've had Gundarium, Gundarium Alloy, Gundarium Alpha, and Gundarium Gamma. In Turn-A, we go Gundium. Gundam Wing's Gundanium is apparently referred to in a sort of in-joke as "Gundarium Theta". Well, how about some more? I'd like to see more "gund" metals, such as Gundesium, Gundyllium, and Gundite. I dunno what would be so special about them... perhaps one could be the opposite of Gundarium, strong against Beams but vulnerable to conventional weapons?

Mega Beam Saber
We've seen Mega, Hyper, Hi-Mega, and Hyper Mega Beam guns of all types... but we've never had a Mega Beam Saber. (Only a Hyper Beam Saber.) What's up with that?

Saber Beam
On a related note, how about a really really huge Beam Saber (like the size of the Astray's Gerbera Straight, or the Grugust's Colossal Blade (or Zankantou); like, y'know, an anti-ship beam saber? If the blade is long enough, it could almost be like an infinitely-streaming beam gun, hence the "Saber Beam" monicker.

Funnel Saber
Another iteration on the above idea. Perhaps a massive, super-long Beam Saber would require a Funnel at the tip, serving as a kind of "terminus" or "point" to the huge beam blade. I imagine the Funnel Saber would look like a big, solid sword... until activated, when a Beam Shield would envelop the sword's "blade", and then it would fire off, extending a continuous beam between it and the hilt. I really like this idea, though the Funnel tip might not be able to move fast enough to keep up with a full-speed sword swing (especially at long distances). Of course, this could be an interesting limitation....

An interesting list of ideas. We need to see some doujinshi that feature these ideas.

One of the things I like about the UC universe is seeing the technologies develop. It made Z Gundam and Char's Counterattack so much fun. I'd like to see more stories soon after Char's Counterattack that use new weapons like these.

It is indeed a serialized text story running in Gundam Ace. However, text summaries are floating around online, and of course it features cool visual aids in the form of Yas characters and Katoki mecha.

My point was just that if you want more stories soon after Char's Counterattack that use new weapons and tech, Gundam Unicorn is a good option -- it takes place in UC 0096 and the Unicorn Gundam uses a fanypants upgraded Psycoframe. It seems to me to be an intermediate technology between the Psycoframe and the Biocomputer/Neo-Psycommu tech of F91. Which makes sense.

Tachyon wrote:I may be mistaken but isn't Gundam Unicorn a novel series? Or is it manga? If it's a novel it's pretty inaccessible to me.

Wasps - basically an upgraded funnel with submunitions. Not only would wasps have cannons, but could also release optically-guided missile swarms. They would be somewhat larger than funnels; a mobile suit could conceivably carry a maximum of four.

Mobile armors of course could carry larger numbers. Perhaps there could be an MA dedicated to carrying a large number of wasps - more of a strategic rather than tactical MA.

Wasps do sound like a reasonable development, Newton. They'd be, I suppose, an intermediate development between your basic Bit/Funnel and a full-blown remote Mobile Suit (like the G-Bits from Gundam X).

Biotechnology-based mecha is indeed a direction which Gundam hasn't taken much. (Yet.) That being the case, I think I personally would find the inclusion of such science to be kinda "un-Gundam-like". However, that may well change when/if Sunrise actually decides to do this themselves.

Then again, Zoxesyr did a pretty great job of including biotech-based enemies in a Futuristic Gundam RPG he ran. It was all based off of Newtype hive-mind aggregation; I'm not clear on the specifics of how it worked. It was pretty cool, though!

As for the difference between a strategic weapon and a tactical weapon: Strategy is broad and far-reaching; it's a grand-scale technique. Tactics, on the other hand, are more "gritty", dealing as they do with specific interactions and carefully-defined parameters. Like the dictionary says,

Strategic:
"of great importance within an integrated whole or to a planned effect" and also, in specific military terminology, "designed or trained to strike an enemy at the sources of its military, economic, or political power".

Tactical:
"using or being weapons or forces employed at the battlefront" and "relating to small-scale actions serving a larger purpose" and "adroit in planning or maneuvering to accomplish a purpose".

My idea for the wasp carrier MA would be strategic because the pilot would be anchored outside the battlefront, dispatching wasps and laying them out to harass and destroy the enemy from a number of attack points.

I would expect the pilot to be one of those monkeyf**k insane Newtypes. The idea of controlling a squadron of bits AND submunitions just blows my mind.

Another thing I'd been wondering about was the possibility of some kind of "Minovski Bomb". However, Mark said that it really wouldn't be any more effective than a normal nuke.

However, some kind of "Psyco-bomb" might be interesting. A device designed to spew Psycho-wave feedback into all Psycommu systems within its "blast radius", thus taking out any newtypes and newtype-use MSs on the battlefield.. that could be useful. Not 100% sure how it would work though. It might actually need to use a newtype mind as its "warhead". Which would be harsh.

As mentioned in the Gundam OO Design Commentary thread, I would actually like to see a combining super-robot take on Gundam. The SRX from SRW is, of course, pretty much exactly that -- it's just not "actually" Gundam.

I also find myself trying to think of new sensor styles for Mobile Suits. We're got the characteristic eyes type as seen on Gundams, we've got the "visor plate" type seen on GMs and such, we've got the Monoeye used by Zeon MSs, we've got the goggles-style sensors used by the Crossbone Vanguard, we've got the bug-eye style used by the Zanscare Empire, the Space Revolutionary Army MSs of Gundam X had multiple slits for sensors, and we've got the "square panel" style seen on OZ mobile suits. I think that eyeballs, like those seen on Mortar Headds and various Super Robots isn't well-suited to Gundam... I wonder what other distinctive sensor styles might work for a Gundam-style universe?